Calendar

Opinion:(George Soros, billionaire investor, Chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute, project-syndicate.org): “The process of European integration reached its apogee with the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the euro. But the euro was an incomplete currency: it had a central bank but no central treasury….

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that there should be no joint EU guarantee; each country would have to take care of its own institutions. That was the root cause of today’s euro crisis….

“As the largest creditor, Germany could dictate the terms of assistance, which were punitive and pushed debtor countries towards insolvency. Meanwhile, Germany benefited from the euro crisis, which depressed the exchange rate and boosted its competitiveness further.

As integration has turned into disintegration, the role of the European political establishment has also reversed, from spearheading further unification to defending the status quo. As a result, anyone who considers the status quo undesirable, unacceptable, or unsustainable has had to take an anti-European stance. And, as heavily indebted countries are pushed towards insolvency, nationalist political parties – for example, Finland’s True Finns – have grown stronger, alongside more established counterparts elsewhere in Europe….

“The European elite needs to revert to the principles that guided the Union’s creation….

“We should look for a European solution rather than national ones. ‘True Europeans’ ought to outnumber true Finns and other anti-Europeans in Germany and elsewhere.”